


Here's Looking at You, Kid

by gellavonhamster



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: 2020 sugar bowl tournament, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23156962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellavonhamster/pseuds/gellavonhamster
Summary: Violet's parents - all three of them - watching her grow over the years.Written for the 2020 Sugar Bowl Tournament.
Relationships: Beatrice Baudelaire/Bertrand Baudelaire/Lemony Snicket
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Here's Looking at You, Kid

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Группа Пропащих Волонтёров](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16039004) by [gellavonhamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellavonhamster/pseuds/gellavonhamster). 



> Written for the [2020 Sugar Bowl Tournament](https://quietworlds.dreamwidth.org/) for the prompt: "Beatrice/Bertrand/Lemony & Violet, pre-canon. B/B/L watching Violet grow over the years".

Violet Baudelaire was a couple of minutes old, and Beatrice, exhausted and happy, was holding her in her arms.

“See, and you were worried,” remarked the midwife good-naturedly. She wasn’t a volunteer – as far as Bertrand and Beatrice had learned, no one among the staff there had any connection to VFD. That played a critical role when choosing the clinic. It was a stroke of luck, and Beatrice was almost sure that if at some point in the future she got pregnant again, they wouldn’t have the same luck the second time. “A strong and healthy baby!” 

“She must be taking after her father,” Beatrice replied, gently rocking her daughter to sleep. Strictly speaking, it was too early to judge whom Violet was taking after, because all infants, objectively, only looked like one another. It was what Beatrice used to think before, and even now, already feeling a sharp, scorching influx of love for this little warm bundle in her arms, the kind of love that made, in her eyes, this baby different from all the other babies in the world once and for all, she still found it hard to argue about. But Violet had brown eyes. Not green like Beatrice’s, and not blue like Bertrand’s. 

Well, that settled all doubts related to paternity.

“He left us her to remember him by,” she thought, and instantly felt angry with herself. Violet was no souvenir, no lock of hair in a locket or something of that sort. She was not a part of Lemony or Bertrand, not even a part of Beatrice – not anymore. She was a living being on her own, with a tiny red puckered face and long dark eyelashes, and Beatrice was positive that she would grow up to be kind, clever, and loved. At least she and Bertrand were going to do their utmost to make sure it happened. 

“Should I invite her father in?” the midwife asked, and Beatrice’s heart stung for a second, because he could not be invited, could not be summoned with a letter or a call or a telegram or by crying on the floor at three o’clock in the morning – but only for a second. Violet had a father, she reminded herself. It was just that once they used to hope she’d have two of them.

“Yes,” she nodded. “Please do.”

In her arms, Violet wrinkled up her nose and yawned.

***

Violet Baudelaire was two years old and sleeping on the sofa in the living room, and Beatrice, who just came back from the nursery where Klaus was sleeping, was standing in the doorway and watching her. More precisely, she was watching her daughter, then shifting her gaze to Kit Snicket, seated in an armchair with a cup of already cooled-down coffee in hands, and then looking at her daughter again. 

“Has she noticed?” Beatrice thought. “Has she figured it out?”

Kit must have sensed her presence, for she turned around and looked at her closely without saying a word. Her lips pressed together tightly, her eyes sad. Her brown eyes.

Beatrice walked into the living room and quietly sat down on the other side of the sofa, next to Kit. 

“You know, he used to sleep like that as a child,” Kit said in a soft voice and smiled slightly. “Put his thumb in his mouth, curl up, and sleep.”

So she had noticed then. Beatrice sighed. “I am going to tell you something now, something that might upset you. But I have to say it, just to be on the safe side.”

“I am listening”.

“The fact that his blood flows through her veins doesn’t change anything. He wouldn’t want her… taken either. The three of us discussed that more than once.”

Kit tilted the cup to one side, then to another, as if she was going to read coffee grounds.

“I respect your choice,” she said slowly. “I was just watching her and thinking… I’d be glad if she had a quieter childhood than he did.”

“And you and Jacques did?”

“We were grown.”

Like hell they were, just two years older than he was. Beatrice gritted her teeth.

“He would have adored her,” Kit told her, and Beatrice found herself on the verge of tears but could hold them in – the joint effort of her acting skills and of some other, the ones acquired in VFD. Lemony’s death still felt like a fresh wound. She loved Bertrand with all her heart, but that heart had room for two, and Lemony, for that matter, took his place there earlier, back when they still were funny, self-assured kids. What was that thing Emily Brontë said? ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’ Truth be told, Beatrice didn’t like that book much – something in that story about the children who suffered a lot and grew up to make others suffer was too relatable for it to be enjoyed. It reminded her of that poem O loved to quote, possibly the only poem he ever really liked. Yet that one quote was priceless, because there was no better way to describe what she and Lemony had. Her soul was still alive, but something in it had changed irretrievably. 

“I know,” she said. “I know.” 

***

Violet Baudelaire was five years old, and she had just proudly demonstrated Bertrand the tent she had built of several pillows, a mop, two blankets, and an old umbrella. 

“It’s not a tent, Dad,” she said reproachfully when he complimented her on her architectural talent. “It’s a palace!”

Naturally, Bertrand apologized at once for such a glaring mistake, and both of them climbed into the palace to check how comfortable it would be for her and Klaus when he came back – Beatrice took him to the dentist’s. 

“This will be our living room,” Violet explained. “You and Mom have a whole separate room for receiving your guests, but we will receive ours here.”

“And who will you invite first?” Bertrand asked. Violet paused to think.

“I don’t know,” she drawled. “Yesterday a girl at the playground told Klaus she had a book about dinosaurs. Maybe we’ll invite her? If she brings the book for us to see.”

Bertrand smiled – and then, as it sometimes happened when he was looking at his daughter, joy gave way to nostalgia.

Violet resembled Lemony. A lot. At times, it caused him pain, but that pain had nothing in common with the kind another man might have experienced in such a situation. He always thought of Violet as of his own daughter and did not doubt Beatrice thought the same – fine, perhaps he doubted it a little at first, but rather due to not being sure that he, an orphan raised by three siblings who were far too young when they took him in, could be a good father. These fears, however, had become history by now. The only reason why it pained him to recognize Lemony Snicket in Violet’s features was that he loved Lemony Snicket – still loved him – and would give an arm and a leg for him to be there, to be able to watch his daughter grow, learn, create and invent too – and his son as well, for just like Violet was Bertrand’s daughter, Klaus would’ve been Lemony’s son. 

“Dad?” Violet’s voice broke his train of thought. “Are you all right?”

Bertrand looked at her and smiled again; the way she looked like Lemony might have caused him pain, but it also made him love her even more.

“I’m fine, dear. Just got lost in thought. Hey,” he winked at her. “Will you help me make some sandwiches? I think we have to hold a welcome party to celebrate the opening of the palace when Mom and Klaus are back.” 

“Yes! Hooray!” Violet jumped to her feet in glee. The palace shook, but remained standing.

***

Violet Baudelaire was ten years old, and Bertrand, standing on the veranda, was watching her swing Klaus on a swing that Beatrice and he had hung for them on the strongest tree in the garden. The Baudelaires could afford a decent wooden swing, even several if desired, but Beatrice had set her heart on showing the children how to make a swing out of a car tire. So presently, Klaus was sitting on a tire and trying to hold on to the rope and hold his glasses in place at the same time, while Violet kept pushing the tire every time it flew up to her. 

“Klaus,” Bertrand called, putting the phone aside for a moment, “Take off your glasses; you’re going to drop them! Violet, take the glasses from him and put them on the bench!”

“What are they doing?” Lemony asked at the other end of the line. Bertrand pressed the handset to his ear snugly.

“Riding on a swing. We put a tire on a rope in the garden for them, and now we have to watch out all the time lest they kill themselves on it.”

Lemony gave a short soft laugh. Bertrand could not describe how precious that sound was to him – until recently, he believed he would never hear it again.

“Come visit us someday. Meet them,” he said. It was not that he really had any hopes on that point, but it was worth trying once more. Sooner or later Lemony might simply get tired of saying ‘no’. “Please”. 

Lemony heaved a sigh. “The last time Beatrice and I talked I got the impression she did not want to see me.”

“She wants to. Trust me. She just needs to process it all properly. She believed you were gone – _we_ believed you were gone – and then it turned out there was no need for all those tears, for all that pain… I can see why you acted that way, but that does not change the fact that you lied to us. Give her some time. I will tell you when you can come – of course, if you deign to leave the number for calling you back.”

“Bertrand, this might be dangerous. As a matter of fact, I am certain this is dangerous.”

“You know, Violet has your eyes,” Bertrand said. He imagined that was a sucker punch but he decided he had a right to it since Lemony let him and Beatrice mourn him for ten years. 

“And your habit of tying her hair up in a ribbon,” Lemony replied. If the remark about the eyes struck home, it was not obvious from his voice. “I saw you at the post office recently.”

“Right. Beatrice accidentally dropped a letter without a stamp into the post box, and Violet was trying to invent a way to fish it out without asking the post office employees for help. I do not tie my hair up anymore, though: I always get it cut short these days.”

“Understandably. You are a serious adult person now, and a family man, not some youth in flared pants.”

“I’ve never had any flared pants.”

“Well, a youth without any pants, then. That is even better.”

Bertrand rolled his eyes. “Please,” he said once again. “Consider my invitation.”

“All right,” Lemony agreed – perhaps to change the subject, or perhaps because he was actually going to consider it.

Violet still kept swinging Klaus, and both of them were laughing loudly. Bertrand stepped closer, as far as the phone cord allowed it. 

“Can you hear them?” he asked and turned the handset in their direction, hoping that the noise the kids were making would be possible to hear. If he had switched over to sucker punches, he had to go all the way. Then he put the handset to his ear again.

“I can,” Lemony told him. His voice sounded chokingly.

Perhaps, Bertrand thought, he could bring him round in the end.

***

Violet Baudelaire was fifteen years old, and Lemony was looking at her photo cut out of a newspaper.

He didn’t like thinking that from the point of view of biology, he was her father. He did not consider himself one – hadn’t earned the right to be called one. Bertrand, who had more than earned that right, might have objected (if only for the sake of debate – even after both of them had outgrown the unfounded feeling that they must oppose each other in everything, they still liked to engage into debates, though for fun only), but Bertrand, unfortunately, could not debate with anyone about anything anymore. Lemony couldn’t deny that Violet had his eye colour and his facial contours, but he had no doubt there was nothing of him in her personality: there was no reason for it to be. By contrast, she, just like her siblings, probably had inherited a lot of qualities, habits, tics, and junk words from Beatrice and Bertrand. Probably – because while he described every word and every thought of those children in his books, he did not know them personally, though he had seen them on numerous occasions. 

The Baudelaire orphans in his books were not, of course, the completely faithful images of the real Baudelaire orphans, more like a combination of what he had learned about them from the people who had met them, and what he imagined them to be like based on the things he knew about them. So Sunny Baudelaire, who looked like her father, was described as having her mother’s fearless heart, and Klaus Baudelaire, who took after his mother in terms of appearance, had the same quiet rage in him that his father had often experienced and meticulously concealed. As to Violet, she had inherited Beatrice’s unwavering urge to protect the ones she loved, and Bertrand’s inquisitive mind and talent for inventing. Beyond all doubt, her parents would have been proud of her if they knew how she acted throughout the series of unfortunate events that had befallen their family, though first and foremost they would have definitely been sorry that she had to grow up so fast, that all of their children had to grow up so fast. 

Lemony Snicket was not sure if he had any right to be proud of Violet Baudelaire, yet he was proud nonetheless. 

***

Violet Baudelaire was twenty-six years old, and she was sitting across from Lemony at the table.

“Don’t be mad at Klaus,” she told him, her fingers smoothing out a candy wrapper reflexively. Sunny and Beatrice weren’t there because the hour was already late and the elders had sent them to bed (no one, however, could be sure they were really sleeping and not being occupied with any mysterious pre-teen business). Klaus wasn’t there either because about half an hour ago he retired to his room under the pretext of a headache. His countenance and demeanour had given Lemony the idea it had not been about a headache or, if it had, the cause of the said headache had been he, Lemony Snicket. “Don’t take it to heart, but he has never liked your books. Not so much your style or linguistic choices as the very fact of their existence.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t think it is of any importance. Firstly, you helped Beatrice find us. And secondly,” she smiled wryly, “I am older and I can hold my emotions in check.” 

_Kit_ , he couldn’t help thinking as he shook up at the familiar irony, the familiar look of the brown Snicket eyes. But Violet Baudelaire wasn’t Kit or Jacques or Beatrice or Bertrand, all the more not himself. She was purely herself, no matter how stubbornly his eyes kept catching hold of those features of hers that reminded him of the people long gone. She was purely herself, and there was no place for him in her life, or in Klaus’s life, or in Sunny’s, and now that the four orphans had reunited again, he could not help doubting if there was any place for him in Beatrice’s. 

But Violet asked him, “Will you stay? At least for a couple of days. I guess since you’ve become a bestselling author thanks to us, we have a right to question you properly about our parents. And about our guardians. About everything.”

“Has she noticed?” he thought. “Has she figured it out?” 

“Of course,” he agreed. He didn’t know if he was ready to reveal every single secret to them. Perhaps it would be cruel to swamp them with so much information inconsistent with a lot of what they had known before. Perhaps he was just looking for excuses beforehand. Perhaps he should think about it tomorrow, after all of them would have had enough sleep. “I should be very glad to.” 

So Violet Baudelaire smiled at him, and for a moment he forgot what doubt was.


End file.
